Laozi

If you are depressed you are living in the past. If you are anxious you are living in the future. If you are at peace you are living in the present.

Stop thinking, and end your problems.

Doing nothing is better than being busy doing nothing.

Let people return to making knots on ropes, instead of writing.

The sage governs by emptying senses and filling bellies.

The sage attends to the belly, and not to what he sees.

Simplicity has no name is free of desires. Being free of desires it is tranquil. And the world will be at peace of it's own accord.

When the people are ignorant, they are easy to control.

The sage does not hoard. The more he helps others, the more he benefits himself.

The people are hungry: it is because those in authority eat up too much in taxes.

When the government is lazy and careless, the people are unspoiled; when the government is efficient and smart, the people are discontented.

The best rulers are those whose existence is barely known by the people.

A good traveler has no fixed plans and is not intent on arriving.

The journey of a thousand miles begins with a single step.

When the best student hears the Tao, he practices it diligently. When the average student hears the Tao, he is half-hearted. When the worst student hears the Tao, he laughs out loud. If he did not laugh, it would not be the Tao.

Anticipate the difficult by managing the easy.

The greatest conquest is to conquer oneself.

Water is fluid, soft, and yielding. But water will wear away rock, which is rigid and cannot yield. As a rule, whatever is fluid, soft, and yielding will overcome whatever is rigid and hard. This is another paradox: what is soft is strong.

A man with outward courage dares to die; a man with inward courage dares to live.

Nature does not hurry, yet everything is accomplished.